said. “It’s not me.”
“So what’s your name then?”
Maybe this is it, I thought, just a trick to get me to tell them my name. I wasn’t falling for it. They weren’t going to find me. I’d managed to keep away from them for this long.
“It’s not Cassiel,” I said. “No way it’s that.”
They glanced at each other.
“Have another look,” Gordon said, and Ginny said, “Take your time.”
They didn’t believe me. They wanted to be right, I could tell that. They were going to insist on it. It doesn’t matter what you say to people like that. When they have made up their minds they stop listening.
I breathed in hard and I tried not to think. I looked at the boy in the picture. I thought how incredible it was to have a double like that, somewhere out in the world, to look exactly like a total stranger. I looked at Cassiel Roadnight’s happy, flawless, fearless face. And the thought occurred to me then, that I could be him, if I wanted. It crept in. I could see it coming and I tried so hard not to notice it.
I could be.
And if I were Cassiel Roadnight, the thought said, I wouldn’t have to be me any more, whoever that was.
You won’t exist, it said. You could wipe yourself off the face of the earth in a second. You could vanish into thin air, right in front of your pursuers.
I gave that thought my full attention. What did I have to lose?
There were people looking for Cassiel Roadnight, but they were people who cared. He had a family and friends. He had loved ones. He had a life I could step right into.
And what did I have?
Nobody. Nothing, except the fear of being found. The people looking for me just wanted to pull me apart.
I always wanted to be someone else. Doesn’t everyone?
“OK,” I said to the thought, so quietly I almost didn’t say it at all.
“What?” Gordon said.
They looked at each other and then back at me. It was like they’d been holding everything in. Suddenly there was this noise in the room of them breathing.
“OK,” I said.
“Good,” said Ginny, and Gordon said, “Your name is Cassiel Roadnight?”
“Yes,” I told him. “My name is Cassiel Roadnight,” and I watched the smile spread and stick to his face.
I lied. That’s what I did wrong.
It didn’t feel like much. Everybody lies once in a while. And just in case it counts in my defence, I wished it was the truth, I really did.
Ginny let me look myself up on the computer. She wasn’t supposed to. Using the office equipment was against house rules. But then again so was running, or having a knife that actually cut things, or eating a peanut.
“Just for a minute,” she said, and she watched over my shoulder. I could smell her breath. I could hear her swallow.
I turned to look at her. “Do you want to leave me alone?”
There’s no way she was allowed to do that. I watched her blink three times.
“Of course, Cassiel,” she said, like she worked for me or something, like this was a hotel and I was paying to be there. “I’ll be just down the hall.”
God, having a name was something. Try being nobody and asking for your space.
Cassiel Roadnight had his own missing person’s profile. He came from a small town where everybody knew him, where everybody knew each other. He went missing on fireworks night when the place was full of strangers, packed with people all come to see the procession and the dancing and the costumes and the fireworks and the Wicker Man. It happened every year. A celebration in the town, called Hay on Fire. It was a clever time to disappear.
It was the 5th of November. I looked at that date on the screen for a long time. Cassiel Roadnight hadn’t been seen since then. Nor had I.
The profile said he was wearing jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt. His face was painted silver and gold for the procession, and over his ordinary clothes he wore a black cape and a mask that covered his eyes and nose. There were photos. It was strange to see a picture of him hours or even minutes before he was gone. It was even stranger to see my own eyes looking out from behind that mask.
His disappearance was ‘completely out of character’, which means they didn’t see it coming. He didn’t leave a note, and he didn’t tell anybody he was going.
His family said they would never give up hope of seeing him again.
They said, “Cass, we miss you and think about you every day. There is no problem that we can’t solve together. Just let us know that you are OK. And please come home.”
I would have liked a message like that. It would have meant a lot to me, people never giving up hope.
There were other photos of him too, not just the firework ones. I sat in the empty office and I looked at them all: Cassiel with an ice cream, Cassiel in the football team, Cassiel with a panting dog, Cassiel on a windswept beach. It was like looking at myself with a life I couldn’t dream up, the life I wished I’d had. I knew I hadn’t been there, I knew it wasn’t true, but I willed myself to start hearing the drums in that procession, to start smelling the mud and sweat of the football pitch, to taste the strawberry pink of that ice cream, the salt and sand on my skin. I willed myself to start believing those pictures were pictures of me.
If you haven’t eaten for a few days you have to be very careful to take little bites, or the food you’ve been wishing for and dreaming about day and night can make you worse than sick. Trust me, I know. That’s why I knew not to wish for a family. I knew it was a terrible idea.
But wishing is addictive.
Cassiel Roadnight’s life slipped into my head right then and stayed there. I couldn’t make it go away. I thought about his mum and dad, about what they might look like, about how their faces would change when they saw me. I thought about his brothers and sisters, how many of them there might be, how old they were. I thought about his cosy little town and the gap he’d left by leaving. I thought about his friends. I imagined how happy they’d be when he came home.
I kidded myself that they needed me as much as I needed them. I kidded myself I could end all their suffering just by showing up.
I thought about the kind of house Cassiel lived in, about his room and how it would feel when it was mine. I thought about breakfast at the table in the kitchen, pancakes and bad jokes and orange juice and the yellow sun on our faces. I thought about going to school and having friends and being normal.
I wished for what Cassiel Roadnight had. I wished with every single breath.
I didn’t think about the knife-edge being him would force me to live on. I failed to see it. I refused to look down.
I stared at his face on the computer screen and I dared myself to try it. Either I was going to make my wish come true, or I had to go right now and tell Gordon and Ginny the truth. I could become him or I had to become me. That was my choice.
I picture it often, me walking down the corridor towards them, pretending to choose. I replay the scene in my head because it was the time just before there was no going back, the last seconds I was no one, not me and not Cassiel Roadnight yet, not quite.
My shoes squeak on the polished floor, my hands feel hot and swollen and clammy, and I think I am undecided. I think I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Undecided seems like a magical